Draft:Stormester

Stormester (English: Grand Master) is a Danish comedy panel show based on the British show Taskmaster. It has been broadcast on TV2 (Denmark) since August 2018. The show features five fixed panelists per season who all complete tasks, judged by the show's host Lasse Rimmer who is assisted by Mark le Fêvre.

The format for the show was created by British comedian Alex Horne during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010, and was subsequently developed into a successful UK television show in 2015.

The studio sections in seasons 1 through 4 were recorded at Court Theatre, but as of season 5 have been recorded at Glass Hall, a theatre in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. Vindernes vinder and En chance til episodes were recorded at Cirkusrevyen.

Format
Stormester is a comedic gameshow and mostly follows the format of the original British Taskmaster, however there are some notable differences. Every episode starts out with one of the contestants having brought the item "they'd hate the most to lose". This is, unlike the original format where all five contestants bring an item for every episode, not a task and doesn't give any points. The contestant who has the most points at the end of the season is the overall winner and is awarded a golden trophy made in the likeness of Lasse Rimmer's head.

This is followed by 4 tasks recorded months in advance in the Taskmaster's house. The participants enter an area of the house or the garden, where they find a task ranging from "get information from this Russian woman" to more complex or artistic tasks. Some tasks give the participants 8 weeks to solve it, and they're the solutions are then participated live on stage. Tasks are overseen by Mark le Fêvre on location, and judged by Taskmaster Lasse Rimmer live on stage. They're then ranked and given between 1 and 5 points (though disqualification or failure to complete the task usually results in 0 points). Every episode is wrapped up with a final live task where the participants compete against one another on stage rather than doing it separately. The contestant with the most points in the episode wins the item which one of them brought at the beginning of the episode. In case of a tie, instead of a tiebreaker task being assigned to the tied participants, ties are broken in favour of the participant who won the most tasks for that episode.

Unlike the original format, Stormester does not feature team tasks, aside from certain live tasks; all pre-recorded tasks are individual.

Season 1 (2018)
The first season consists of 8 episodes which aired on TV2 from 25 August and 13 October 2018. The participants of the season were Christian Fuhlendorff, Lina Rafn, Nikolaj Stokholm, Ruben Søltoft, and Julie Ølgaard. The overall winner of the season was Christian Fuhlendorff.

Season 2 (2019)
The second season consists of 7 episodes which aired on TV2 from 26 April to 30 May 2019. A Christmas special was aired on 26 December 2019. The participants of the season were Sofie Linde, Thomas Warberg, Melvin Kakooza, Stephania Potalivo, and Jacob Taarnhøj. The overall winner of the season was Sofie Linde.

Season 3 (2020)
The third season consists of 7 episodes which aired on TV2 from 29 May to 10 July 2020. A Christmas special was aired on December 27th 2020. The participants of the season were Lise Baastrup,Victor Lander, Sarah Grünewald, Jesper Groth, and Heino Hansen. The overall winner of the season was Victor Lander.

Season 4 (early 2021)
The fourth season consists of 7 episodes which aired on TV2 from 20 February to 3 April 2021. A Christmas special was aired on December 28th 2021. The participants of the season were Annika Aakjær, Neel Rønholt, Mahamad Habane, Jakob Thrane, Anders Breinholt. The overall winner of the season was Annika Aakjær.

Season 5 (late 2021)
The fifth season consists of 8 episodes which aired on TV2 from 25 September to 20 November 2021. The participants of the season were Linda P, Simon Talbot, Sofie Jo Kaufmanas, Jonas Mogensen, and Tobias Rahim. The overall winner of the season was Jonas Mogensen.

Season 6 (2022)
The sixth season consists of 7 episodes which aired on TV2 from 5 November to 17 December 2022. The participants of the season were Eva Jin, Sebastian Klein, Julie Rudbæk, Simon Jul, and Martin Johannes Larsen with Simon Jul being the champion. The Christmas special aired on 25 December 2022.

Starting from this episode, episode finale winners are not announced as in the final episode of a season, their season scores are shown instead in score updates. If scores are tracked normally in the final episode, who the winner would be announced for the particular episode is shown in parentheses and small text.

On 1 January 2022, viewership data collection for Danish television was transferred from Gallup to Nielsen.

Season 7 (2023)
The seventh season consists of 7 episodes which aired on TV2 from 16 June to 28 July 2023. The participants of the season were Anders Lund Madsen, Hadi Ka-koush, Jesper Ole Feit Andersen, Kathrine Abrahamsen, and Petra Nagel, with Ka-koush being the season champion. The Christmas special aired on 25 December 2023.

Studio filming took place on 13, 15, 16, and 20 March 2023.

Vindernes vinder (2023)
StormesterVindernes vinder (Champion of Champions) is a special series of four episodes which aired on TV2 from 4 November to 2 December 2023. It features champions from the first five seasons of Stormester: Christian Fuhlendorff (season 1), Sofie Linde (season 2), Victor Lander (season 3), Annika Aakjær (season 4), and Jonas Mogensen (season 5), with Fuhlendorff as the overall winner. Although produced before season 7 (filmed on 7 and 8 November 2022), it aired later.

En chance til (2024)
StormesterEn chance til (One More Chance) is a special series of four episodes which aired on TV2 from 16 March to 6 April 2024. It features participants from previous seasons who did not become champions: Jacob Taarnhøj (fifth place in season 2), Thomas Warberg (second place in season 2), Linda Pedersen (fourth place in season 5), Sofie Kaufmanas (fifth place in season 5), and Eva Jin (fifth place in season 6). The series was won by Jacob Taarnhøj, receiving a trophy modelled on Lasse's foot.

Studio filming sessions took place on 31 October and 2 November 2022.

Reception
The series has become fairly popular in Denmark, frequently making it into the top 20 most watched broadcasts of the week, occasionally making it into the top 5.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, TV2 announced that they would postpone several shows, among others the third season of Stormester which was supposed to air only two days after the announcement. This, however, was poorly received among many viewers, who wrote mails of complaint for not airing content, which had already been made.

B.T. journalist Kristian Dam Nygaard stated that Stormester is perfect family entertainment, though with one major flaw. "It feels as though the final 'live' tasks on stage - and especially the prizes they fight for - seem pretty pointless." According to Nygaard, the stakes don't seem genuine. "But surely no one believes that for instance Annika Aakjær really runs the risk of losing her car to one of the others." In spite of this, Nygaard still enjoys the show. "When it comes to it, the final task and the prize don't really matter, because at that point, you've already had fun with about an hour of 'Stormester'."

At the Tvprisen 2022 awards, Stormester won the award in the category of Best Game Show. It also won the Billed Bladet reader award for best entertainment programme. At Tvprisen 2024 it was one of the five programmes nominated in the category for Best Entertainment Programme.

International distribution
Season 1 episodes were made available for viewing on the official Taskmaster YouTube channel on 18 July 2022.

The first three seasons are available for streaming on the VOD subscription service Taskmaster Supermax+.